Climate change in the land of frozen ground, fish and hardy trees
Published Sunday, July 27, 2008
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FAIRBANKS – Alaska is changing, and not just in the booming suburbs or shrinking villages, but in the trees on the hillsides, the fish in the oceans, and the climate itself – the very things that make Alaska what it is.
The spruce and birch of the boreal forest are struggling with warm summers, and shrubs are moving into the tundra. Grizzly bear, moose, and king salmon are showing up in places they haven’t been seen before, and subtropical fish are taking fishermen’s bait in the Gulf of Alaska.
Almost invariably, Alaska is warmer for children growing up now than it was for their parents -- really warm days are more common in the summer and really cold days are less frequent in the winter.
In Barrow, hunters say sea ice forms along the shore later in the fall and breaks up earlier in the spring. Bearded seals are harder to find.
“These changes are too many, and are happening way too fast to be normal,” said Edward Itta, a Barrow whaling captain and mayor of the North Slope Borough. “Or natural.”
In other parts of the country, climate change is largely a future threat. In Alaska, it’s an immediate reality. While the Earth as a whole has warmed about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century, Alaska has warmed more than 3 degrees in the last 50 years. Alaskans are already grappling with shifting animal species, altered weather patterns, and villages made uninhabitable in part because of shrinking sea ice.
Changes are playing out in rural areas far from roads or shopping malls, where residents rely on snow and ice for travel and still get a large portion of their food from the wild. And they’re playing out in urban areas, where slowly thawing ground is expected to cause billions of dollars in damage to infrastructure.
Ground zero for climate change
There are still questions about why Alaska’s climate is changing and why it’s changing so fast, but scientists who study the climate largely agree with Itta -- that things are happening too fast to be entirely natural, and that at least some of the dramatic rise in temperature is caused by human-induced climate change.
Separating out natural changes from those caused by humans -- through an increase in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide -- isn’t easy. It’s especially hard in Alaska, where the climate tends to vary a lot even without the influence of humans. (Climate is different from weather -- weather is what we experience every day, while climate is the average weather and range of weather one can expect.)
Alaska is warmer for children today than it was for their parents, but maybe not for their grandparents. The 1920s, ‘30s, and early ‘40s were relatively warm in the state, and the warmest year on record -- averaged from five Alaska locations -- is actually 1926.
The state is strongly affected by El Nino, a phenomenon that occurs every three to seven years and changes ocean currents and air circulation patterns, and by a much longer cycle, called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, that keeps ocean and air temperatures warm or cool for decades at a time. (During warm periods, changes in air pressure bring more warm, moist air to Alaska from the south.)
While the 50-year temperature record suggests a strong warming trend across Alaska, a pieced-together 100-year record shows temperatures have been more up and down. After a warm period from the mid-’20s to the mid-’40s, the state was relatively cool for about 30 years. It warmed again suddenly in the winter of 1976/’77 and has been relatively warm ever since.
So at least some of the recent warming can reasonably be attributed to natural changes.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Climate scientists believe Alaska is also warming because of human-induced, or anthropogenic, climate change, a global process in which an increase in greenhouse gases warms the planet by trapping more of the sun’s energy in the atmosphere.
“We just have a lot of ups and downs superimposed on a longer-term warming trend,” says John Walsh, a University of Alaska Fairbanks professor who’s studied the Arctic climate for most of the last 30 years.
Large natural variations make it hard to pick out an unnatural warming trend, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Many scientists believe the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has already switched back to its cool phase, but Alaska temperatures have not noticeably cooled. If the PDO hasn’t switched back, it’s unclear how the climate will change when it does.
It’s also unclear whether anthropogenic climate change is making natural cycles like El Nino and the PDO stronger or more frequent, according to Walsh.
That’s the “$64,000 question,” he said.
There are also climate-related reasons why temperatures should warm faster in northern areas than in other places. As warming temperatures start to melt the Arctic’s highly reflective snow and sea ice, the exposed land and water underneath absorb more energy from the sun, accelerating the warming.
Scientists predict that human-induced climate change and the so-called feedback loops that shape its course will make the Arctic and Alaska much warmer in the future. The models scientists use to predict how greenhouse gases will affect global temperatures show that if humans keep burning fossil fuels as we are now, average annual temperatures in the Arctic will warm about 7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century -- when children born today would be nearing the end of their lives.
And not just warmer, but different. Climate change affects how water cycles through the atmosphere, how winds form, and how oceans move. In Alaska, winters are expected to become much warmer, but summers might not change that much. Precipitation is expected to increase, but increased evaporation could actually make things drier.
Learning to cope
To Itta and others, what’s causing the changes isn’t as important as the fact that they’re happening.
“Things are going to get out of control,” Itta told members of a state commission studying the impacts of climate change. “Our concern is, What are we going to do?”
Some of the current and future changes might be seen as positive, but many are clearly not.
Consider fish. Warming ocean temperatures are expected to drive some species north, and may be doing so already. The shifts could boost certain fish stocks in the Bering Sea and even create commercial fishing opportunities in the Chukchi Sea to the north. But they could also bring new predators and diseases to existing stocks.
Changes in freshwater systems could reduce or even kill off fish populations in places where the changes happen too quickly or where a shift in range isn’t possible.
Alaska’s climate has been relatively stable for thousands of years, and the plants and animals that live here are well suited to it. Now, as conditions change, whole ecosystems are changing.
“It’s a worrisome time to be studying ecology,” says Terry Chapin, a professor of ecology at UAF who oversees the Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research program.
When Chapin first started working in Alaska in 1969, he focused on how plants and animals had adapted to the northern environment.
“But now that environment is changing so quickly,” he said, “it becomes a question of how can Alaskan plants and animals cope with the changes they’re already experiencing -- and are expected to experience even more profoundly in the coming decades?”
The changes are likely to be hard on Alaskans, too.
Skills developed by Alaska Native hunters through generations of living off the land are becoming less reliable as the environment changes. Hunters say ice conditions and weather patterns are harder to predict. Fish don’t dry like they used to. Meat spoils during the traditional hunting season.
Itta says the things that really keep him up are the dramatic shifts in weather and the changes in sea ice and tundra.
Maybe the warm temperatures are just a fluke, he told the commission.
“But if they are, they better hurry up and get back to normal,” he said. “I don’t think we can sustain changes of this magnitude very long.”
Community Discussion
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And the myth continues....no commonsense in sight (or scientific evidence).
I'll bet had you stood on the bow of the Titanic you'd still be saying, "Iceberg? What iceberg?"
even as you were sinking................
You know, I really hope the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis is wrong. I don't think it is--I think the science is there, and it certainly makes sense--but I do hope it turns out to be false.
If it's not wrong, though, then there's going to be a whole lot of well-deserved "I-told-you-so's."
On the lighter side, - at least no one will be able to complain about heating oil costs since our winters are "expected" to get warmer folks. (couldn't resist) So no more panicking about that rebate, ok?
"Warm summers", you've got to be kidding. Why do you view climate change, if it exists at all, as a threat?
AKRaskal, I fear it for the same reason that I fear all that is unknown ... it may be good or it may be bad. I'll never know until it arrives, though, and because it is unknown, I can't prepare to avoid the negatives.
Change happens. Deal with it. Adapt or perish! What part of this don't people understand?
Gardeners, farmers feel effects of cool summer
http://newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/27/ga...
Just our luck we will have a warm winter with lots of snow, or will it be one of those winters that start in September and stay cold till May, or will a late fall and rain in January, etc. Someone take the challenge and predict this winter. I could care less by the end of the century, 90 years away. How many of you will even we around to see if it happens.
John Walsh, one the the lead authors of the chapter 15 of the Working Group II of the 4th IPCC report, did not mentioned in this chapter the role of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) even though the UAF researchers Hartmann and Wendler (the Director of the Alaska Climate Research Center) investigated it and published it in 2005 in the well-known Journal of Climate of the American Meteorological Society (see http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ResearchPro... ). John Walsh, Hartmann and Wendler were working in the same building today called the Akasofu-Building.
The abstract of this article reads:
"The 1976 Pacific climate shift is examined, and its manifestations and significance in Alaskan climatology during the last half-century are demonstrated. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation index shifted in 1976 from dominantly negative values for the 25-yr time period 1951–75 to dominantly positive values for the period 1977–2001.
Mean annual and seasonal temperatures for the positive phase were up to 3.1°C higher than for the negative phase. Likewise, mean cloudiness, wind speeds, and precipitation amounts increased, while mean sea level pressure and geopotential heights decreased. The pressure decrease resulted in a deepening of the Aleutian low in winter and spring. The intensification of the Aleutian low increased the advection of relatively warm and moist air to Alaska and storminess over the state during winter and spring.
The regime shift is also examined for its effect on the long-term temperature trends throughout the state. The trends that have shown climatic warming are strongly biased by the sudden shift in 1976 from the cooler regime to a warmer regime. When analyzing the total time period from 1951 to 2001, warming is observed; however, the 25-yr period trend analyses before 1976 (1951–75) and thereafter (1977–2001) both display cooling, with a few exceptions. In this paper, emphasis is placed on the importance of taking into account the sudden changes that result from abrupt climatic shifts, persistent regimes, and the possibility of cyclic oscillations, such as the PDO, in the analysis of long-term climate change in Alaska."
Now, one can find in this News-Miner article that the rise of the temperature is mainly related to a jump in 1976. Obviously, John Walsh and his disciples were so biased by their agenda of global warming that any scientific evidence that did not support their agenda was ignored in their chapter of the 4th IPCC report. This is, clearly, scientific misconduct.
during warmer periods in history human civilization has always flourished. during the colder periods we have struggled with famines and wars for scarcer resources. eras like the renaissance and dark ages are climate related. the renaissance coming during a period of warmer, not colder times.
Yup, keep looking at your own navel people. Man, is destining to repeat his mistakes with short-sightedness like we see here!?
<shakes head>
Or maybe the second coming??? Right, polarsnark?
Wow, warming is good! Who would have thought!
Does everybody just REFUSE to see that volcanic activity, forest fires and melting permafrost put out more Co2 and other harmful gases into the atmosphere than humans are capable of? Stop supporting this theory unless you're selling hybrid cars.
We are NOT the most influential force on this planet.
Can Someone "Please Tell Me" when this "Global warming" is going to start this Year ! My garden is To COLD to Grow !
As soon as you are ready to admit that we do contribute to putting more Co2 and other harmful gases into the atmosphere, Lost.
Remember that bumper sticker, "Alaskan's for Global Warming"? Wow, we now have some real hard science published in the DNM to back it up! I have noticed the ice cubes in my Mint Julep melt a little faster lately... hmmm.
According to the data of the British Hadley Centre (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/had... ), there is a decrease in the mean global near-surface temperature since 1998. In 1998 there was a dominant El Nino phenomenon.
omg, stop commenting ymbc- you are just ANNOYINGLY DUMB.
OF COURSE mankind contributes, I NEVER SAID OTHERWISE.
look up the out put of co2 released by melting permafrost, volcanoes and forest fires worldwide and see which puts out MORE harmful chemicals, I don't think man can compete with mother nature, arrogant people DO.
Science and climate....It seems everyday that I am reading about climate change. Well, I believe that our educated climate people reallly don't have a clue...How about solar changes that effect earth.
How about man can not change change. Live with it...Mother earth will be ok....It's the man made carbon TAXES of the future that I am afraid of.
There is thawing of permafrost, but not melting. Some "experts" like UAF's assistant professor David Atkinson are chatting about melting of permafrost even before the Climate Change Sub-Cabinet (http://www.climatechange.alaska.gov/docs..., page 19), but this is sheer nonsense.
You know your right Lost...Fairbanks is heating up as we speak...from all this Neocon Hot Air! I am taking the flowers out on the porch as we speak...keep it up!
China (polluting and they dont give a rats#@$!) comments in 3...2....1
A complete list of things caused by global warming...LOL
and all on 0.006 deg C per year!
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.ht...
buboy,
please read the article Climate versus Climatism (http://www.rightsidenews.com/20080723151... ). An except of this article reads:
Climatology is a science. Climatism is an ideology. Climatologists are scientists. Climatists are social or political organizers who abuse climatology in the service of ideologues. Climatology was and still is an investigation of nature. Climatism is the exploitation of the fear of nature to gain power, wealth and social esteem.
Once, learned discussions about the climate, if not tomorrow's weather, were confined to climatologists. Today, public discussion about the climate in the Western media is dominated, maybe monopolized by climatists. The typical American, Canadian, European, Japanese, or Australian is exposed to climatism daily but hardly ever to climatology. Climatism is a Western ideology that has, generally, failed to expand its ambit of influence beyond rich people in rich countries.
Climatism asserts that severe or catastrophic changes in the climate are ahead (but not just yet). The primary strain of climatism and the one known to the general public is that the earth is warming rapidly (Climatism W). This is a terrible thing. Human beings acting according to their nature i.e engaging in human activity are responsible. However, climatism has the solution: ruthless carbon suppression via total control of human society, globally. The secondary strain but one unknown to the public is that the earth is getting ready to cool dramatically (Climatism C). This is a terrible but entirely natural thing. Human beings have nothing to do with it and there will be few left anyway, assuming they follow some survival prescriptions, to worry about such things.
lol, ymbc you are OBSESSED with "neocons" and labeling everybody that says something you don't agree with as such- keep it up!
Also Vinod K. Dar writes for Right Side News and is an energy industry professional and has published articles for electric and gas industry journals and trade press for more than 25 years. He is the Managing Director of DAR & COMPANY, founded in 1990. He has operating experience in gas and electric trading, marketing, retailing and merchant generation, and has been CEO of two energy trading and marketing companies. Mr Dar has served on the Boards of five publicly traded energy and consulting firms. Vinod is a huge contributer to Bush-Cheney 2004.
Well, the way I see it is as follows: nothing wrong with global warming, specially in Alaska. It just opens more land for us to farm. Now a global cooling followed by an ice age would be a disaster.
This summer feels like an ice age is coming. The thermometer outside the house is barely pointing at 50 degrees!
Some interesting thoughts:
In praise of Carbon
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
There is no scientific theory linking carbon dioxide to the “runaway” global warming that is the basis of the calamitous predictions. The contribution of the gas to the making of a comfortable planet by the greenhouse effect is well understood, modest and self-limiting. It is only turned into a terror by computer models. These are worthless; depending as they do on extensive guesswork about the ill-understood mechanisms and interactions involved in climate, and involving so many tunable parameters and feedback factors that they could produce any desired result by appropriate tweaking. A quarter of a century ago, before science came under firm bureaucratic control, such models would have been laughed out of court.
The putative experimental evidence is equally dubious. It all sounds very impressive and scary, but on close examination tends to dissolve like the morning mist in the light of the sun. It is only recently that a small troupe of volunteers with few resources has begun a serious audit of the claims. The much vaunted “high-quality” sensor network turns out to be ramshackle almost beyond belief; the processing of the data involves inapplicable methods, glaring errors and unexplained adjustments, which all mysteriously turn out to exaggerate the desired effect. There is a morbid and obsessive secrecy among the practitioners that is quite contrary to the open nature of the scientific method, which prompts the question “What have they got to hide?” Details of publicly funded “research” are kept, quite illegally, from the public who fund it; and only the claimed results, inevitably apocalyptic, are exposed. Such data that have been wrested with great difficulty from their creators almost invariably turn out to be subject to serious dubiety.
Carbon has been framed for purely political purposes.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/Carbon.htm
skwet wrote-"Human beings acting according to their nature i.e engaging in human activity are responsible"
So I guess the pollution from natural causes don't contribute? Do any of you actually KNOW how much volcanoes put into the atmosphere??? Look it up if you're really interested in climatology or just turn on the selective-learning device so many of you seem to have installed in your brains and bury your heads in the silt.
lol, lost you are OBSESSED with "greenies" and labeling everybody that says something you don't agree with as such- keep it up!
YMBC,
that is right. It is mentioned below of his article. Obviously, you believe that he is a layer because he is an energy industry professional. Fine! Dr. Pachaury, the Chair of the IPCC, was on the Board of Directors of the Indian Oil Corporation (January 1999 to September 2003); Board of Directors of GAIL (India) Ltd. (April 2003 to October 2004); National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd (August 2002 to August 2005); the Board of Governors, Shriram Scientific and Industrial Research Foundation (September 1987); the Executive Committee of the India International Centre, New Delhi (1985 onwards); the Governing Council of the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi (October 1987 onwards); and the Court of Governors, Administrative Staff College of India (1979-81).
Still questions?
People, all you have to do to see that climate change IS happening and is currently affecting our taiga ecosystem is to look outside at our forest. EVERY SPECIES of tree and shrub is highly stressed by some kind of pest and abiotic conditions that are less than positive for boreal forest species. These pests were held in check by the colder climate of the past - no more. If things continue as they are, we won't have any of these species (birch, aspen, spruce, alder, willow) left and our way of life will be massively different.
I think with all of the rain the interior has been getting this year; as compared to other years, we can probably look forward to above average snowfall this winter, way above average. So, the State and cities, better be prepared for it.
And those wimpy fuel efficient cars will probably have a hard time getting around. So, I predict lots of snow, with above average temperatures this winter.
There's a reason why people buy those big V8's
in Alaska. Fuel efficient or not.
lol, wow ymbc you never cease to amaze me with your dim-witted and childish responses.
I never even wrote the word "greenies" where you continually write the word "NEOCON" ad nauseam. get over yourself, please, you write like you think you're funny and profound or something and really it's just babble with some stupid cartoons once in a while, yawwwwn boring.
just as I thought, mention REAL pollutants (like volcanic activity) and nobody knows what to say.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images...
LostAlaskan,
the role of volcanoes is really unknown. When the volcano Krakatao exploded in 1883 a huge amount of material was blowing into the air, but a signal in the mean global near-surface temperature record can hardly be detected. Perhaps, it might affect radiation.
akjak,
what does that mean for the tropical forests? The air in the tropics is much warmer than in Alaska.
ok skwet so you know absolutley NOTHING-
"Carbon dioxide is released when magma rises from the depths of the Earth on its way to the surface. Our studies here at Kilauea show that the eruption discharges between 8,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each day. Actively erupting volcanoes release much more CO2 than sleeping ones do."-scientists at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory
This doesn't include hot springs and other vents from inactive (non-erupting) volcanoes, it doesn't include co2 released from wildfires or melting permafrost.
CLimate changes and changing enviornments is all brand new to the world. Wait, that statement is as ignorant as it sounds. Just one example comes to mind, the place where they built the boats Columbus brought to America.
These are huge sea vessels, emphasis on huge. they where made to go across the ocean, and no one in past days or present build boats where they have to be transported to the ocean. That would be costly today and damn near impossible 500 + years ago. The sight where they built the boats was on a river, this is recorded history that you can research and verify that I am correct about. It was a very wide and very deep river that they used to get the boats out to the ocean for sailing.
Any way, the town where those boats where built is today about 200 miles from a river let alone the ocean. The area looks like a prairie, flat open and dry located very much inland. Why does this stand out? Because the planet has been changing constantly always. We can not look at a hundred or a couple hundred years of recorded weather history and determine what happens over a millinium. Those guys cant even predict what way the clouds will move when two weather systems hit each other, how can they expect any one to take their work verbatim as the end all be all fact?
If the Mayans are right and the earth shifts on its axis in 2012, all of these theories will be blown out of the water the same way the 2000 scare went. No planes fell from the sky and my computer works just fine, if a birch doesnt grow maybe a maple or a mahogheny. Life balances, people move on, blah blah blah
In his booklet "A Skeptical Layman’s Guide to
Anthropogenic Global Warming" Warren Meyer wrote:
Climate research, once a sleepy academic backwater, is now a multi-billion dollar industry. This boom in spending is because of fears of AGW [= anthropogenic global warming], and should AGW theory be discredited, this funding will quickly dry up. So funding for climate researchers exists only as long as climate researchers beat the drum that AGW is a large threat. It strikes me that this is at least as large an incentive for bias as that of any Exxon-funded skeptic. Here’s another way to look at it: If AGW theory is proven correct, the likely political response might cut Shell’s revenues by 20-30%, at most. If AGW theory is proven incorrect, then university climate research funding might be cut by 100%. Directionally, all the incentives in academia are to inflate global warming projections. No one is going to make the news, or even continue to get funding, if they argue that warming will only be a degree or two in the next century. The guys that get the fame and the grants are those pushing the numbers higher and higher.
I wonder if anybody is paying attention to the effects of last years big 250sq.mi. tundra fire between the Nanushuk and Itkillik rivers.
The scorched area is probably absorbing much more solar heat. Is this area outgassing more lost-methane now than before the fire?
Maybe its even more of a fire hazard now than before?
The area is on top of the Gubik gasfield.
Philipe Higuera has some interesting observations..
http://rs.resalliance.org/2008/03/06/cli...
Has anybody you know been up there this summer and collected any data?
http://www.aslo.org/photopost/data/504/1...
......flash/rumble
nope, distant thunder, certain people seem to believe the ONLY source of Carbon dioxide is from humans and fires put out none.
Global warming or not, is it really a bad idea to curb emissions for our personal well being? Would it really be that bad if we progressed technology so that we wouldn’t have to sit in a haze of pollutants at traffic lights? It really isn’t pleasant breathing it in. Would it be that bad if we could efficiently harvest energy from renewable resources thus reducing the need for costly (and ugly) mining and drilling?
http://www.heartland.org/pdf/22921.pdf
California Teacher Encourages Political Activism by Elementary School Students
Written By: Sixth grade students
Published In: Letters
Publication Date: March 1, 2008
Publisher: David A. Brown Middle School
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract:
The Heartland Institute recently received a collection of letters written to us by 6th graders in a California public school condemning us for not believing in global warming.
The nine letters, apparently written by about 25 students (teamwork, you know…) reveal the students were all quite expert on the subject, having read "10 articles" on the effects of air pollution on fetuses, natural disasters quadrupling in the past 10 years, and "Global Warming Denier Group Funded by Big Oil Hosting Climate Change Denial Conference."
The letters collected here were sent to us by Michael Steria, an earth science teacher at David A. Brown Middle School.
Skewt,
I appreciate your comments on here. You spare us of the condescension that is often present in other commenter's postings. I am interested in an intelligent and rational discussion on this topic.
I live in Southeast Alaska (during salmon season) and we are having a very cold and wet summer. The berries are just starting to ripen (a month late)and there are few pink salmon in our inlet. Herring were spawning a few weeks ago (very unusual). During winter months I live in a village on Kodiak Island and the last two winters have been colder and longer than typical. My family and I are beginning to pay closer attention to the debate on climate change. Some claims just don't add up as we see colder temps and the effects it has on our local food sources.
Lost Alaskan,
fine. Your are dealing with volcanoes and does not know that melting of permafrost means also melting of the soil for which more than 1300 Kelvin are necessary. The correct notion is thawing of permafrost.
Wow, 8,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of CO2 which corresponds to 2200 to 8200 metric tonnes of carbon.
For example: In 2005 the total anthropogenic emission was of about 7.8 Gigatonnes carbon, i.e., 7,800,000,000 metric tonnes of carbon. This means that you need, at least, 100,000 eruptions of volcanoes each year to produce the same emission of carbon dioxide. I am impressed.
Please do me a favor and start to learn math.
Instead of living in denial or pointing fingers we need to work together on how to survive climate change or political. What wasn't able to grow before here may now flourish.
I read in an earlier article where they were pulling up clover since it was an alien plant to Alaska. Instead of destroying it find out what it can be used for. Just think you might of pulled up a potential fuel source or feed for our livestock.
Yes we see a change, it maybe a natural way of things or man made but it's there.
Just think Alaska can be the bread basket of our country since much of the midwest and south has been hurt by disaster. Here's our opportunity Alaska, let's show the rest of the world our ingenuity.
This is what the Cooperative Extension was suppose to be about exploring ways to raise our own food sources.
eymiym,
if it is warm, the global warming alarmists called it global warming. If it is cold, they called it weather anomaly. Many of the UAF researchers like John Walsh, Glenn Juday, and Terry Chapin are so strongly biased by the agenda of global warming that it is unacceptable. Above, I quoted Warren Meyer's A Skeptical Layman’s Guide to Anthropogenic Global Warming. Perhaps, he thought about such guys when he wrote these statements.
skwet
my figures were for a SINGLE DAYS output from just Kilauea and is not an estimate, climate change has happened BEFORE mankind came about so how do you explain that?. please learn how to read english.
and btw the scientists whom I quoted are not "climate researchers" making money from promoting or disproving ANY theories, they are simply volcanologists studying a natural phenomenon and are not going to make money stating FACTS like volcanoes put an incredible amount of gases into the atmosphere- methane, sulfur dioxide etc.
simple facts man.
LostAlaskan,
let me quote you: "Carbon dioxide is released when magma rises from the depths of the Earth on its way to the surface. Our studies here at Kilauea show that the eruption discharges between 8,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each day. Actively erupting volcanoes release much more CO2 than sleeping ones do."-scientists at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory".
Okay, multiplying 8200 metric tonnes of carbon with 365 days/year yields that more than 2600 volcanoes must erupt for the whole year. In the case of 2200 metric tonnes of carbon more than 9700 volcanoes are required. I am still more impressed. Are you really a scientist?
Another question is whether you have estimated the additional greenhouse effect caused by the active volcanoes?
You know, to all those who take sooo much stock in these "scientists" who do SOO much "research", I say - look at the pharmaceutical industry.
Those "scientists" we all trust so much keep creating all these drugs that kill and injure how many people a year before these products are then PULLED OFF the market? Science has NEVER proven ANYTHING!
When "scientists" can tell me what will happen tomorrow with the weather and get it right, THEN I may be inclined to listen to climatologists who THINK they can predict 100 years from now simply because they gave a computer "scientist" some data.
Scientists can't agree on what diet we should have, or whether or not it's bad to be in the sun too long. Some scientists tell men they will go impotent riding a bike, do you believe them as well? How about scientists who tell you all that SMOKING KILLS, even second hand smoke is bad. And plenty of you seem to ignore THOSE scientists.
It' seriously time to wake from the slumber, people.
I'll say it again - "Man-made Global Warming" is a test to find out how dumb Americans have become. And it certainly seems that some of you are quite dumb, despite higher "education". Good job, America!
Here is a video made four years ago, it's interesting to see "hawkeye" in our familiar landscape even if you don't agree with the science.
Go down to the "The Heat is On" segment, very interesting about the permafrost.
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1404/video/watcho...
So cute!!! People who have a math level of 7th grade examining article headlines! You see kids, how it works is, people with brains collect raw data over years and years and then...see...they “analyze” it and obvious trends sorta just pop out. Now stay with me folks. You see these trends form a sort of line if graphed and all of those lines point to a warming trend over the last 100 years. Now here is the tricky part...we are able to examine past warming trends from the gasses trapped in things like ice fields and even layers of the earth.
Okay...you still able to follow me? These samples have shown that there has not been a rise in temperature this sudden and sharp ever. Okay. Ever.
Now let's try a little logic kids- Do you REALLY think all of this pollution, gasses and man made activity have NO affect on climate at all??? REALLY? None???? Okay, let’s assume you have an IQ above an ant. You must agree it has some affect...I mean how can it not? Forget the science...think for a moment. Here is a test! If you still think it is ALL made up- go to your garage, be sure the garage door is shut, and start the car. Sit in your car and see if after 30 minutes you notice any affects. If not, write me tomorrow and I will apologize. You were right. If you do notice affects, well the world might be a better place!!!!
Now we put it all together kids. They are simply saying...as a trend...the ENTIRE earth's temp is rising at a rate never experienced on earth. Since we are the ONLY variable (do I need to define that term) that is new to earth...WE kinda think WE have at least something to do with it.
Conserving, not wasting, using less gas, cleaner air, cleaner water, etc., what in the HECK could you be complaining about??? How stupid must a person be to bother arguing about climate change when the only thing advocates are suggesting are all helpful, good things for all of us!!!! No one is asking you to kill you children, well, they aren't. They are asking you to not drive your sad Hummer and to maybe turn the lights off when you are not using them.
Poor babies! It is a cool summer in Alaska, so climate change must be a myth. Personally, I think the problem is how poorly educated most people are in this area. We have a mass of military and trades people, who do great work, but have never been expected to educate themselves about anything in the world. Our drop out rates are among the highest in the nation. The comments reflect the results!
So stick with what you understand! Little guns and toys that make you feel like a man. Leave science to people who have studied for years and who actually understand what they are talking about. Enjoy your SUV and go to your church. God will care for you. Let the rest of us worry about making the world a better place to live.
LostAlaskan,
when it is correct that at the beginning of the industrial era the carbon dioxide concentration was of about 280 ppmv, than there are important natural sources of carbon dioxide. Volcanoes might be such sources. However, whether volcanoes notably cause climate change is nearly unknown because the greenhouse gas hypothesis is still a hypothesis.
The eruption of a volcano is still a natural event. The 4th IPCC report listed only the solar irradiance as a natural phenomenon responsible for radiative forcing. Obviously, volcanoes were not important for the IPCC.
"Science has NEVER proven ANYTHING." - Mr. Green.
Except for, you know, countless numbers of facts about our universe...
wow, well written. *applauds
"volcanic activity"
newsminerbrainminers,
the emission scenarios of the IPCC suggest that even a reduction of anthropogenic emission to values before 1990 does not result in a decrease of the carbon dioxide concentration. The concentration will rise up to a value of 560 ppmv. Compared to the current value this will be an increase by 180 ppmv. The IPCC reported that the increase since 1750 amounts to 100 ppmv.
How many people do you know who are driving an idiotic hummer?
Henry-
by all means, please list some of these "facts" of the universe.
LostAlaskan,
here is an excerpt of the Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers reads:
It is likely that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations alone would have caused more warming than observed because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would otherwise have taken place. {2.9, 7.5, 9.4}
It is very unlikely that climate changes of at least the seven centuries prior to 1950 were due to variability generated within the climate system alone. A significant fraction of the reconstructed Northern Hemisphere interdecadal temperature variability over those centuries is very likely attributable to volcanic eruptions and changes in solar irradiance, and it is likely that anthropogenic forcing contributed to the early 20th century warming evident in these records. {2.7, 2.8, 6.6, 9.3}
"Likely" and "very likely", but no scientific evidence. This is climatism, but not climatology.
It's all about an obsessive need for oil and lack of human "ingenuity" when it comes to "getting from A to B" and simply living a normal life with PLASTICS. We make plastics that we only use for ten minutes then throw away.....but the plastic lasts 4000 years!!!
We can't seem to get past the good OLD internal combustion engine.
We are simply OVERPOPULATING the planet, "breeding like rabbits" so to speak, if you look at the noxious and chemical emission increases in the atmosphere alongside with human population growth and expansion rates you will see the correlating rise in BOTH. This is not due to humans and their cows "breathing alot" this is because of the need to put chemicals in the air to manufacture diapers and cell phones and clothes and tires and even "environment friendly vehicles", it was all good till we started making our lives "easier" with the start of the industrial revolution.
lol skwet really likes the word "anthropogenic" and "climatism/climatology".
It's okay man I agree with you on most points actually- yes sitting in a car in a closed space with the engine running will kill you, yes humans put bad things in the atmosphere.
Try sitting next to the rim of an active or just venting volcano, there are fumes that would kill you in much less time than Co2 and you think they just "disappear" into the environment without having SOME effect?
Wiki states this-
Despite the existence of well-tested theories, science cannot claim absolute knowledge of nature or the behavior of the subject or of the field of study due to "epistemological" problems that are unavoidable and preclude the discovery or establishment of absolute truth. Unlike a mathematical proof, a scientific theory is empirical, and is always open to falsification, if new evidence is presented. Even the most basic and fundamental theories may turn out to be imperfect if new observations are inconsistent with them. Critical to this process is making every relevant aspect of research publicly available, which allows ongoing review and repeating of experiments and observations by multiple researchers operating independently of one another. Only by fulfilling these expectations can it be determined how reliable the experimental results are for potential use by others.
Isaac Newton's Newtonian law of gravitation is a famous example of an established law that was later found not to be universal—it does not hold in experiments involving motion at speeds close to the speed of light or in close proximity of strong gravitational fields. Outside these conditions, Newton's Laws remain an excellent model of motion and gravity. Since general relativity accounts for all the same phenomena that Newton's Laws do and more, general relativity is now regarded as a more comprehensive theory.[12]
Now- look up epistemology- or- the "Theory of Knowledge"-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemolog...
And again , All science, including what we "believe" about gravity, for example, is NOT 100%(or fact). It is theory, speculation, ALWAYS open to debate.
I don't suppose anybody remembers the wonderful smoke filled Fairbanks summer when we had worse emissions/Air Quality than L.A.?
Maybe Chapi